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Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba cautioned at a Monday press conference that capital city residents should be conscious of their water consumption as another large flock of visitors is expected at Jackson State University’s football game this coming weekend.

Lumumba said there was an increased demand for water this last weekend as people travelled into the city for JSU’s homecoming game. The extra consumption put pressure on the city’s water distribution system, the mayor said, which was dealing with water line leaks. On Saturday, the city issued a boil water notice for 380 connections in southwest Jackson.

The mayor called it a “very difficult weekend” for the water system, and even warned residents of the potential for a citywide boil water notice if there’s too much demand on the already fragile treatment plants.

“I want to provide this warning: we’re expecting a large number of people to come in this weekend as well as Jackson State prepares for its rivalry game with Southern University,” Lumumba said. “We’re asking that people be cognizant, that people be considerate over their consumption. Don’t use more than what you need to use, as increased demand and the pressure on our water treatment facilities could actually cause challenges with our water pressure, and if the water pressure drops significantly enough then we might find ourselves in a citywide boil water notice again.”

As the extra consumption put pressure on the surface water delivery system, which serves most residents, well system customers also saw interruptions after a motor pump failure by Highway 18. Lumumba said the city made an emergency purchase for a new pump with the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval, and that the city slowly restored water pressure over the weekend.

The mayor also discussed new funding opportunities for the water system, some that have already been allocated and some that the city is applying for:

• $5 million the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provided through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• $20 million from Congress’ continuing resolution to fund the federal government.
• $4 million through state and private assistance grants through the EPA.
• $71 million Jackson has applied for through state allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act.
• Up to $50 million the city is pursuing through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program.

Lumumba also referenced plans the city has had to decommission J.H. Fewell, the city’s secondary water treatment plant. While the city will still look to replace Fewell at some point, he said those plans are “a long way away” as the city needs the plant’s production to “make up the difference” with what O.B. Curtis can produce.

“That is the long-term vision, and it increasingly appears to be the long-term vision to create a new water treatment facility in its entirety, even moving away from O.B. Curtis,” the mayor said. “But J.H. Fewell is more than 100 years old, there are parts and equipment at J.H. Fewell that are completely obsolete and will never be repaired. But today, we don’t have the luxury of moving away from J.H. Fewell.”

Lumumba added that the city’s request for proposals for a contractor to operate the city’s water facilities will go until Nov. 7, and that he expects the contract to start on Nov.17. He continued to dispute Gov. Tate Reeves’ assertion that Lumumba had left the state’s Unified Command Structure established to assist in the Jackson water crisis, saying that he met with the team earlier Monday.

The post Visiting JSU crowds put strain on Jackson water system, mayor says appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Attorney General’s Office has determined that the killing of a mentally ill man by a Forrest County sheriff’s deputy was justified, according to a two-sentence press release Monday morning. 

A team of Forrest County deputies arrived at the home of Maurice McCarty Hughes’s sister on the evening of July 14 with one responsibility: to pick up Hughes to take him to receive mental health care. Instead, a deputy shot and killed him after Hughes struck him with a hammer. 

“Police job is to serve and protect,” said Cassandra Teal, who witnessed her brother’s shooting. “Not come and kill.”

Teal said an official from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which handles the investigation each time a law enforcement officer kills someone in the state, came to see the family on Friday to tell them that the attorney general had found Hughes’ shooting was justified. 

Hughes, who had just turned 45, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder about 25 years ago. Over the years, he sometimes stopped taking his medication, and a family member would go through the process to have him civilly committed to get treatment at a state hospital. 

Civil commitment is a legal process in which a court forces a mentally ill person into treatment. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are committed for psychiatric reasons each year. About 5,000 Mississippians were committed in fiscal year 2021. 

Mississippi law requires sheriff’s deputies to pick up civil commitment patients and transport them to the state hospital or a holding location until a bed becomes available. That practice is common around the country, but in some places – like Tucson, Arizona – the officers responsible for commitment pickups receive specialized training and solely serve people with mental illness. 

Nationally, Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to access psychiatric services through involuntary commitment. 

Hughes had been committed about 16 times before, relatives said, always without incident. If he did not want to go with the deputies, they might tase him, but no one ever pulled a gun. 

Mississippi Today asked the attorney general’s office how staff reached the conclusion that the shooting was justified. 

“We considered all available evidence, the MBI investigative report, and applicable law to determine that there was no criminal conduct on the part of the officer involved,” said Michelle Williams, chief of staff for Attorney General Lynn Fitch.

Teal said that when she began the civil commitment proceedings in late June, she filled out paperwork explaining her brother’s state of mind and listed the items he had that could be used as weapons, including the hammer. 

All four deputies had received crisis intervention team (CIT) training, designed to equip police to understand mental illness and help people in crisis instead of using force. Nearly 700 law enforcement officers in Mississippi have participated in the training since mid-2018, according to the Department of Mental Health. But national studies have found no evidence that the training reduces the odds that an officer uses force against a mentally ill person. 

None of the deputies were wearing body cameras, so there is no video footage of the shooting.

Hughes’ death marks the first time the attorney general’s office reviewed a fatal shooting by law enforcement under a new law that took effect July 1. 

Previously, local district attorneys decided whether to present such cases to the grand jury and seek charges. Indictments of officers who kill people while on duty are rare in Mississippi and around the country. Officers are legally permitted to use lethal force if they fear for their lives, and the Supreme Court has held that judges and juries must defer to the perspective of the officer on the scene. 

Though it happened rarely in Mississippi, prosecutors could choose to release large amounts of information – including complete investigative files – after the grand jury declined to indict an officer. It’s not clear how much evidence the attorney general’s office will release in these cases.

Teal, an eyewitness to the shooting, said MBI officers never interviewed her. Instead, they asked her to provide a written statement shortly after she watched a deputy kill her brother. She was still in shock and later thought of other details she wanted to share. An officer told her he would call her to set up an interview, but he never did, she said. 

“I learned from that day, never believe nothing the police tell you,” Teal said. 

Mississippi Today has filed requests for records with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Attorney General’s Office to review the evidence collected during the investigation and understand how the attorney general’s office came to its conclusion. 

The family has hired an attorney to represent them in a civil action “to seek justice” for their loved one, Teal said.

James Hughes, Maurice McCarty Hughes’ father, said he was not surprised by the attorney general’s conclusion.

“Black lives don’t matter,” he said, but then paused.

“They kill a Black man – I imagine if it would have been a white man they would have said the same thing. It ain’t about race. It don’t make no difference about color. They are just going to stick together on this stuff.”

The post Attorney general finds police killing of mentally ill man was justified appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s students have not fully recovered from pandemic learning declines, new national test results show, offering a different picture than state test data released earlier this year. 

On Monday the National Center for Education Statistics released 2022 data from the Nation’s Report Card, known officially as the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). NAEP tests fourth and eighth-grade students on what they know and what they can do in math and reading. The last assessment, given in 2019, showed significant gains for Mississippi students that earned national recognition. 

The 2022 NAEP results show declines or stagnation across all 50 states since 2019, a decrease that national leaders say is evidence of the pandemic’s impact. The greatest declines were in math performance, particularly for eighth grade students across the country. 

“As a country, we face enormous challenges, and there are many areas of serious concern in the data we are talking about today,” said Peggy Carr, National Center for Education Statistics commissioner, said in a press conference. “But I am convinced that this accurate and reliable information that we’re sharing today can help us turn things around for our students.”

For Mississippi students, there were declines in every tested area except fourth grade reading, where there was no change in student performance. The decreases in eighth grade math and reading performance were comparable nationally, but Mississippi saw a larger decrease in fourth grade math performance than the national average.

The 2022 average scores for Mississippi fourth graders were on par with the national average for reading and math, but Mississippi eighth graders were significantly behind the national average in both subjects. 

These results offer a different picture than the state test results published earlier this year by the Mississippi Department of Education, which showed students approaching pre-pandemic levels of achievement. The reading results are more comparable across the two tests, but NAEP results showed larger declines in mathematics that were not apparent in the state test data. 

“The 2022 NAEP scores prove the resilience of Mississippi students and the ability of Mississippi educators to provide high-quality instruction despite the challenges of the pandemic,” said Interim State Superintendent Kim Benton. “While our state’s scores are encouraging, they also underscore the need to press forward to ensure all students achieve proficiency.”  

The tests also broke down performance by subgroup: Hispanic and Black fourth graders in Mississippi saw declines in reading, while white fourth graders’ scores held constant. All groups saw declines in math performance, but the declines were largest for eighth grade Hispanic students.

“The pandemic also laid bare an opportunity gap that has long existed,” said Carr. “The results show how every student was vulnerable to the pandemic’s disruptions, and that it affected some students more than others.”

Additional survey questions included in the NAEP tests showed that, nationally, more high-performing students across the country had access to quality educational resources during remote learning than low-performing students. Those resources included access to a computer or tablet at all times, a quiet place to work at least some of the time, and their teacher available to help with schoolwork at least once or twice a week.

The post Mississippi students see decline in reading and math on national exam appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Senate and House Democratic leaders Sen. Derrick Simmons and Rep. Robert Johnson provide a recap of their joint caucus hearing on the scandal-plagued Mississippi Department of Human Services and its administration of the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. In the poorest state in the country, millions of federal welfare dollars have been squandered and systemic problems remain that prevent the help getting to the poorest of the poor in Mississippi.

The post Podcast: Inside the Democrats’ first welfare scandal hearing appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Greatest Hits appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with Mississippi Mass Choir Executive Director and pastor Jerry Mannery.

Mannery has lived a colorful life that includes being in the first class to integrate Florence High School to being in the Navy. From his time as a Jackson Firefighter, an executive at Malaco Record, a poet, a songwriter, a pastor of We Are One United Methodist Church and a founding member of the world-famous Mississippi Mass Choir, Jerry has done it all.

He discusses his life, the choir, his family and how his faith has influenced it all. This is a great conversation with a Mississippi legend.

The post Mississippi Stories: Jerry Mannery appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Legislature was in the midst of what was known as “the special session from hell” 20 years ago this month, debating whether to give businesses and medical providers more protection from lawsuits. Legislators ultimately did.

A key player in that special session that spanned a record-setting 83 days was Sen. Bennie Turner, a Democrat from West Point. Turner was respected in the Mississippi Legislature for his thoughtful analysis, civility and even-keeled approach to legislating.

He also had a serious hearing impairment.

A recent NBC national news interview with Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is the Democratic nominee in a closely watched U.S. Senate race, stirred a debate about disabilities and serving in key electoral office.

Fetterman suffered a stroke earlier this year. Because of the stroke, he insisted the NBC interview be done in a manner that allowed him to read the reporter’s questions as they were being asked.

Apparently at times, Fetterman’s comprehension of audio communications can be troublesome, though he said the condition should improve in the coming months.

Whether it does or does not improve, though, should not be viewed as a factor in determining his qualifications to be in the U.S. Senate, some contend. Others argue it should.

The debate was stirred in part because the reporter, Dasha Burns, said it was not clear Fetterman could understand her during a period of small talk before the captioning device that allowed him to read her questions was turned on. How that report was portrayed by some in the national media helped spur the debate about Fetterman’s competency.

But during the actual interview, Fetterman read along as the questions were asked and answered forthrightly and sensibly. He stumbled briefly over the word “empathetic.”

Bennie Turner’s hearing loss happened after he was already serving in the Mississippi Legislature. He was elected in 1992, and in 1999 developed life-threatening meningitis, a disease that causes an inflammation of the brain lining and spinal cord. The disease left Turner with a hearing impairment, though he was never totally deaf.

Upon his return to the Legislature, Turner told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, “My main concern is whether I can give the constituents of the 16th District the representation they deserve. At this point I feel like I can deliver, and I am going to try as hard as a I can to do that.”

He must have delivered in the eyes of his constituents. He was re-elected three times after contracting meningitis. Accommodations were made in the state Senate so that Turner, like Fetterman, could read the ongoing debates on his computer.

He remained an effective member of the Senate until he died in 2012 and was succeeded by his daughter, Angela Turner Ford. On numerous occasions, he would rise to express concern about the wording of a bill that could cause unintended consequences. Because of that keen understanding of legislation, the senators would always listen and often would change bills, based on Turner’s input.

Before Bennie Tuner came to the Legislature, Ellis Bodron served in the Mississippi House from 1948 until 1952 and in the state Senate from 1953 until 1984. Bodron, a Vicksburg attorney, was blind. People who served with him marveled at his ability to comprehend and explain complex and lengthy revenue bills.

He chaired the Senate Finance Committee. His chairmanship of the Finance Committee gave him a powerful position to oppose Gov. William Winter’s historic 1982 special session on education reform. Bodron opposed the legislation, but shepherded it through Finance at the behest of Lt. Gov. Brad Dye, who presided over the Senate.

Interestingly, Turner was the Judiciary chair during the infamous 2002 special session and opposed the legislation but played a key role in the process because of his chairmanship and the respect he endeared. He was one of the negotiators on the legislation.

In other words, Bodron’s and Turner’s roles in two historic special sessions were similar.

During Billy McCoy’s first term as House speaker, he suffered a stroke that left him with partial use of his left arm and with what some would say was a speech impediment.

Yet McCoy finished that term and served another as speaker, presiding during a turbulent time when partisan politics became more of a factor. He still played key roles in passing impactful legislation, including the bill that allowed casinos on the Gulf Coat to move on shore after Hurricane Katrina.  

Voters in Pennsylvania will decide whether John Fetterman is competent to serve in the Senate. Their vote for or against him might not even be predicated on his stroke-induced impairment, though his Republican opponent, a medical doctor, Mehmet Oz, is certainly trying to make it an issue.

Mississippians have already decided, based on results, that a person with a disability can be an impactful member of their Legislature.

The post National politicos can look to Mississippi for answers on impact of disabilities on elected officeholders appeared first on Mississippi Today.

According to the Education Data Initiative, federal student loan debt in the United States averages $29 billion per state, with the District of Columbia having the highest individual average ($54,945) and the highest percentage of indebted residents at 17.2%.

Mississippi, although it falls toward the middle with an average of $36,902 per borrower, has the fourth-highest per capita rate of student borrowers, 14.8%, following Ohio, Georgia and D.C.

View the data:

The Biden administration opened applications for federal student loan forgiveness this week, with a cap of $10,000 to $20,000 per borrower, according to Higher Education Reporter Molly Minta.

READ MORE: Biden’s student loan forgiveness application officially opened on Monday. Here’s how to apply

Minta also reports that loan forgiveness, billed as an attempt at addressing the country's racial wealth gap, could greatly benefit Black borrowers in Mississippi, who have higher undergraduate debt than other races and more loans taken out during 2017-18 than the average Black borrower across the U.S.

However, Minta also reported in September that a state tax provision could make Mississippians eligible for debt forgiveness responsible for up to $1,000 in state income taxes in 2023.

"Under guidance from the Internal Revenue Service," Minta writes, "student loan servicers are not providing 1099-Cs – the tax form needed for filing debt cancellation – to borrowers or to state tax departments.

This means that many Mississippians will likely never receive the proper form to file student debt relief on their taxes. And while the Department of Revenue said it may send bills to those who try to skirt the additional tax, without 1099-Cs, it likely has no way of knowing if a Mississippian actually received student debt relief.

'That’s the big question, right?' said Angela Gonzales, a tax manager based in Gulfport who specializes in student loan taxation. 'If you received student loan forgiveness, there’s gonna be no transactions through your bank history, no tax documents. So how far are they going to look into this?'"

READ MORE: Mississippi plans to tax student debt relief. But Paycheck Protection Program loans are tax exempt.

The post Data Dive: Student loan debt in the U.S. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

World War I veteran Lamar Smith knew the risk of registering Black residents to vote and encouraging them to exercise that right. His civil rights work led to his fatal shooting in 1955 on the lawn of the Brookhaven courthouse by three men who were never prosecuted for the crime. 

Nearly 70 years after his 1955 slaying, a historical marker will commemorate the Black farmer’s civil rights work and life at the site of his death. The Board of Trustees for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History approved the marker at its Friday meeting. 

“The board approved a group of markers, including one for Mr. Lamar Smith recounting his story,” said Katie Blount, director of MDAH. 

She said the historical marker program is one of the department’s most popular and a way for people to get involved with history in a grassroots way. 

Family members of Smith have supported the placement of a historical marker at the courthouse in his honor. 

Some have wanted officials to go further. Several family members have gone before the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors multiple times to ask for the courthouse to be renamed in Smith’s honor, but the board has not done that, the Daily Leader reported.

“Any time we talk about [this], the pain comes up like it was yesterday,” said Alma Pittman, Smith’s step-granddaughter, at an April board meeting. “I saw my grandmother suffer. She never got over it. It would be nice to have recognition of my grandfather’s [sacrifice] by the state my grandfather was murdered in.”

On Aug. 13, 1955, 63-year-old Smith went to the Brookhaven courthouse to drop off absentee ballots for a county supervisor runoff election between an incumbent and a challenger he worked for. Three white men approached him outside and shot him in front of at least 50 people, according to FBI documents. 

Noah Smith, Mack Smith and Charles Falvey were arrested for Smith’s death, but they were never tried. Two grand juries were convened and did not take action because witnesses refused to testify, according to FBI documents. 

The FBI reopened Smith’s case in 2008 as part of an initiative for unresolved civil rights era murders. It closed his case in April 2010, saying the three men were dead and unable to be prosecuted.

In its decision to close Smith’s case, the FBI said it did not find a prosecutable violation of federal civil rights statutes and noted there was a five-year statute of limitation on non-capital civil rights violations before 1994. 

The FBI also noted the local coroner’s jury ruled that “probably other parties unknown” were involved with Smith’s death but were never identified. 

Of the 161 civil rights cases the FBI reopened, 53 of them were killings that happened in Mississippi between the 1930s and 1970s. To date, a majority of the cases have been closed. 

One of those cases was that of the Rev. George Lee who was killed in Belzoni months before Smith for registering Black people to vote. Like Smith’s case, the FBI closed Lee’s case because the man accused of shooting him was already dead. 

In interviews for an episode of the 2008 television series “Murder in Black & White,” family members of Smith remembered him as a good man who wanted to help others vote, even when he was told not to. 

“He said he would die for the sake of others,” said Smith’s niece, Jinnie Lee Wallace.

The post Mississippi to commemorate life of slain civil rights veteran appeared first on Mississippi Today.